Provincetown lost many characters in 2018

By Ann WoodBanner Correspondent

Thursday

Dec 27, 2018 at 1:10 AM

PROVINCETOWN — It’s easy to imagine the artist Pat de Groot talking to journalist Stephen Mindich about how she and her artist-husband, Nanno, built their bohemian mansion on Commercial Street, while Tim McCarthy stands behind his camera filming it all. If there is an afterlife, that’s exactly what could be happening, because these local icons died this year — three of many notable people Provincetown lost in 2018.

Pat de Groot, 88, lived the way she wanted and didn’t care what others thought of her. She died on July 26. De Groot became an artist about a decade after Nanno’s 1963 death. She began drawing and then made paintings that often depicted the horizon and the weather she watched from her home studio. She practiced karate, was an award-winning tuna fisherman who appeared in Sports Illustrated magazine and played drums with the man she called her “last boyfriend,” Elvin Jones, a John Coltrane drummer. She was even a past-president of the board at the Fine Arts Work Center. Filmmaker-writer John Waters was her summer tenant for years, and famously called her “bohemian royalty.”

“She didn’t suffer fools, but she always wanted to be around creative people,” Waters said. “She was the only person [I knew] who created and grew a man-eating plant that [reached the ceiling and] bloomed for about two seconds once a year.”

Filmmaker-activist-contemporary historian Tim McCarthy was only 61 when he shockingly died on Oct. 19. His Mohawk always stood straight and his eye-ring sparkled like his personality. McCarthy became fast friends with just about everyone he met. Though he slept in his North Truro house, he lived in Provincetown, and was a tireless activist for LGBTQ rights and for marijuana legalization. His video camera was always in hand. McCarthy’s extensive video library documenting LGBTQ events has been used in several productions, including the 2012 Oscar-nominated documentary “How to Survive a Plague” about ACT UP and the Treatment Action Group, organizations that fought for better treatment for AIDS patients. Charlotte Robinson, who hosted the online LGBTQ news network “Outtake Voices,” said of his death, “It’s absolutely heartbreaking. It’s a real light that has gone out in my life."

Stephen Mindich, a champion of the arts and of cutting-edge journalism, died on May 23 after a four-year fight with pancreatic cancer. He was 74. He lived in Newton, Boca Raton, Fla. and Provincetown, where he heavily influenced the arts. He was part of the small group that founded the Provincetown International Film Festival and was a supporter of the Provincetown Theater and the Fine Arts Work Center. Stephen was the first arts and entertainment critic for WBUR-FM, began writing for Boston After Dark in the late 1960s and bought the publication in 1972. He bought the Cambridge Phoenix and merged the two into the Boston Phoenix. He owned several radio stations, including Boston’s WLYN-FM, which became the alternative rock station WFNX, 101.7 FM.

The actress Beverly Bentley, 88, the fourth wife of literary giant Norman Mailer, died of cerebrovascular disease on Sept. 13 at Seashore Point. Beverly, born Beverly Claire Rentz in Atlanta, Ga., first came to Provincetown in 1956. As a child, her family moved so much that her son, Michael, said she didn’t feel like she belonged anywhere, yet found refuge in theater, TV, and film and in Provincetown.

Beverly broke into show business on Arthur Godfrey’s variety show. She went on to appear in game shows, national commercials and film. She performed off-Broadway as Connie Bliss in Clifford Odets’s “The Big Knife,” starring opposite James Earl Jones. Mailer and Beverly married in 1963. She stayed in Provincetown after their breakup to raise her boys. She returned to New York City but spent her final years at Seashore Point. The Provincetown Theater was packed in November when family and friends gave a three-hour performance celebrating Beverly’s life that included her son, Stephen, channeling his grand dame mother to great laughter.

Another person in Norman Mailer’s life, Dwayne Raymond, died of a heart attack at home in his sleep on April 25. He was 55. His role as Mailer’s assistant, both personal and professional for many years, led him to write the book “Mornings with Mailer: A Recollection of Friendship,” published in 2010. He was also a flight attendant, actor and associate producer of television shows.

Thomas Finn, called “Finn” by friends, died on Nov. 25 at home on Tasha Hill, where he lived for more than 45 years. He was 72. Like his father, Finn was a proud union steamfitter for years, but left home to explore the world as a young man. He told great stories about his experiences. Finn was always surrounded by books and had many interests, such as wildlife, politics, Eastern religions and protecting the environment. He was friends with most every local in town — many of whom were present to celebrate his life at the Old Colony Tap on Dec. 13. The dive bar was packed with people telling Finn tales and showing pictures of the vest-wearing man who cruised around on motorcycles, dove for lobsters and lived with the late parrot, Finbar, for decades.

Richard Brayton Olson died on Jan. 3 at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. He was 75. He was a member of the town’s planning board and was a selectman for five years. In 2004, when Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage, he was part of the selectmen’s decision to defy then-Gov. Mitt Romney’s ruling that out-of-state gay couples couldn’t marry here and issued marriage licenses to everyone. He later became chair of the Provincetown Cemetery Commission. As the town’s unofficial historian, Richard told the world about Provincetown’s rightful place in the story of the Pilgrims’ arrival. In 2009, in a Thanksgiving Day report on “Morning Edition,” he told National Public Radio’s Chris Arnold that the Plymouth Rock story made no sense.

“It’s always struck me as the crazy thing,” Richard said. “You wade ashore on sand. You don’t go up to a rock.”

Bernard “Sonny” Roderick died on Feb. 27 at Seashore Point. Sonny, 89, was a lifelong resident of Provincetown, a proud West End kid who grew up on Whorf ’s Court and later moved to Montello and Conant streets. Sonny attended Provincetown schools and played basketball for both the school and the Knights of Columbus. He graduated in 1946 and began his career as a commercial fisherman. Sonny fished with his brother Joe aboard the Jimmy Boy, later running the fishing vessel Reneva, and eventually owned the Shirley and Roland.

Provincetown native William “Brother” Costa, 86, of Marstons Mills died on April 5. He graduated from Provincetown High School and was a Korean War veteran and a commercial fisherman. He owned three restaurants, the Donut Shop, which was the early morning gathering spot for local fishermen; Stormy Harbor, which was below the Knights of Columbus on Commercial Street; and Cap’n Josie’s in Truro. Brother also worked for Cape Cod Oil.

Blanche Winter died at her Provincetown home on Aug. 24. The holder of the Boston Post Cane as the town’s oldest registered voter since 2016, she was 101. One of her last acts was filling out her absentee ballot for the Sept. 4 primary election. Blanche attended New York City public schools and then a fashion design program created by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration for students who couldn’t afford college. She later worked doing sketches of fashion design and clothing patterns. Blanche was never without a book. Her favorite and most re-read novel was “The Hours” by part-time resident Michael Cunningham. She also loved movies and watched the classics on the Turner Classic Movie channel nightly. A dedicated peace activist, Blanche was a member of the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (now known as Peace Action) and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Joan Rogers Russell was 70 when she died on Sept. 3 at Cape Cod Hospital. She grew up in Provincetown’s West End. Joan worked as a parking meter enforcement person (she was OK being called a “meter maid”), and was a police, fire and rescue dispatcher. She excelled at the job and people said, “No one did it better than Joan.” In the 1980s she started working as a bookkeeper at the Holiday Inn, now the Harbor Hotel, where she was a stickler for balanced books.

Katherine Baltivik died on Sept. 27, one day after she turned 72, at her home on Ships Way Road. In the 1970s, Katherine visited Provincetown and later said, “I knew then I would be back when the time was right for me. Everything that I wanted was here.” In 1997 she and her late wife, Ilene Charles, opened the Charles-Baltivik Gallery, and three years later moved here full-time. Katherine was known as “Mama Bear” because of her early support of Bear Week and was one of the first business owners to fly the Bear Flag. Katherine was involved in Provincetown for Women, and volunteered during Girl Splash and Women’s Week, including stints as the bouncer at the Pied Bar. She quietly gave financial support to Provincetown artists and other residents in need.

There are too many residents lost this year to write about here, but every one of them leaves a hole in the community they loved and characterized.